From Marziah Karch,
Your Guide to Google.
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Are you giving someone a digital camera? Are you getting one for yourself this year? Why not make the most of your gift with these handy tools from Google. You can organize and display your photos, order prints, share them on the Internet and even upload videos.

• What is Google?

Organize and Edit Your Photos

You just took great pictures, now what? You may have a bunch of pictures on your computer's hard drive with the default file names, such as "22343.jpg." How do you find that cute picture of the kids making their first snowman? How do you remove that annoying red-eye? How do you turn these photos into Christmas cards?

If you're using a computer running Windows, you can download a free program from Google called Picasa. Picasa lets you visually organize your photos, so it doesn't matter if you changed the default file name. You can also edit, crop, remove red-eye, and apply basic filters to your photos. It even lets you view and organize home movie files, although it doesn't let you edit video.

• Read a review of Picasa.
• Download Picasa from picasa.google.com.

If you're using a Mac computer, you can use Apple's program, iPhoto. It ships with new Macs, but they also sell upgrade copies for older computers.

Share Your Photos

Once your photos look fantastic, you can share them with your friends and family. You can print directly from Picasa to your home inkjet printer, or you can order prints online from professional photo finishers. That comes in handy for making holiday greeting cards or birth announcements. You can also burn custom slide-shows from your photos and give them out on CD.

Another way to keep your family and friends updated is by sharing pictures on the Internet. You can use Picasa's email button to send photos to your loved ones. This works well with Google's free email tool, Gmail. Gmail gives users a large amount of storage, which comes in handy for sending pictures.

• Learn more about Gmail

Pictures in Picasa or even in iPhoto can be uploaded to a free basic Picasa Web Albums account. Picasa Web Albums lets you post your photos either publicly or privately, and it lets you link to the Picasa Web Albums your friends or family create. It's an easy way to posts your photos without having to buy Web space or know HTML. Storage space is limited to about 1000 photos, but you can upgrade to 24 times that space for $25 per year.

• Sign up for Picasa Web Albums at picasaweb.google.com.
• Read a review of Picasa Web Albums
• Learn how to upload photos from Picasa to Picasa Web Albums.

Talk About Your Photos

You can instant message photos with Hello. Hello is an instant messaging program that lets you quickly share photos. You can send photos to Hello directly from Picasa.

• Download Hello from the Web at www.hello.com.

Blog about Your Photos

Better than just talking, blog about it. A blog is a form of online journal. Google's free service, Blogger lets you easily create and maintain your own blog. You can post photos to your Blogger account directly from Picasa, or you can upload them from Blogger.

Tell your friends and family what's going on in your life and show them the pictures to prove it. Your mother will forget to complain that you never call, because she'll always feel in touch. You can also use Blogger as part of a blogging community to get feedback and tips from other photographers.

• Read a review of Blogger.
• Sign up for a Blogger account at www.blogger.com.
• Learn more about blogs.

Make and Share Movies

Many digital cameras these days also can take short video shots. You can also create your own photo slide-show movies from Picasa or iPhoto. Rather than pulling out the movies when family come to visit, you can upload them to the Web with free Google services, Google Video and YouTube. You can post your uploaded videos to your Blogger blog.

• How to upload your video to Google Video.
• Google Video is on the Web at video.google.com
• YouTube is on the Web at www.youtube.com.